Alternative Way to Install Windows XP from USB Drive

I previously wrote an article on how to Install Windows XP from USB. That process allowed you to create a Windows XP Bootable USB Drive, similar to the XP installation media. All you needed to make the whole process successful was a PC/Laptop with CD/DVD Rom (Windows XP as the host OS). Once you make your USB stick ready to boot Windows XP, you can use it to install Windows XP at any computer though it does not have any optical disk drive.

Here, we’re introducing the best way to install Windows XP by creating a bootable USB drive using PeToUSB. Though this process is quite complex and lengthy it has a better result than the previous one.

Preparing the Bootable USB Drive to Install Windows XP from It

After going through the following steps, you can make your USB drive ready to start setting up Windows XP from it. Then you can start the steps to install Windows XP. Follow the step-by-step guides.

Step 3: Insert the Windows XP installation media in you optical disk drive and perform the following tasks into the command prompt console:

Type 1 and press ‘Enter’. Now browse the optical disk drive (CD/DVD drive) as the source path and click the ‘OK’ button.

Similarly, enter 2 at the choice prompt. If the letter ‘T’ is assigned your computer then change it. Otherwise, do not alter it. After typing 2 in the choice prompt, it will ask to enter available virtual drive letter. Here, type a letter that is not associated with any drive letter of your computer hard disk. Let’s say, S is not a drive letter in your computer. So put S and press ‘Enter’.

Now, it will prompt for the next choice. Type 3 and hit the ‘Enter’ key. Put the drive letter which represents the USB stick in your computer (open ‘My computer’ to see) and press ‘Enter’. Here, my USB drive label is I so, I put ‘I’.

Again, input 4 and press the Enter key. It creates the new temporary image and makes a copy of it to the USB Flash Drive.

Now you should wait for a few seconds and then follow the steps below. A warning message will appear like this: ‘WARNING, ALL DATA ON NON-REMOVABLE DISK DRIVE T: WILL BE LOST! Proceed with Format (Y/N)?’.

Type Y and press ‘Enter’, you will get the message ‘Please wait………’. After completion of the formatting process, it will display ‘Press any key to continue’. Hit any key wait for completing another session. (The ‘Please wait………’ message is displayed again).

Once completed, the ‘Press any key to continue’ message appears again. Just do that.

Step 4: Once everything go in the right way, a message box will appear showing ‘Copy TempDrive Files to USB-Drive in about 15 minutes = Yes OR STOP = End Program = No’. Click the ‘Yes’ button.

After this, a message box appears asking, ‘Would you like USB stick to be preferred Boot Drive U?’. Click ‘Yes’ again. Another message appears asking, ‘Would you like to unmount the Virtual Drive?’.

Click the ‘Yes button and wait for some times and complete the onscreen instructions.

Now your USB stick is prepared. You can start the installation process.

How to Install Windows XP from the USB Drive

1. Insert your USB stick into the USB port and reboot your computer. At the starting, enter into the BIOS setup and set the first boot preference as USB Hard Disk. Save the settings and exit from the BIOS console. Your computer will reboot again and the following screen will appear.

2. Choose the TXT Mode Setup and follow the onscreen instructions. After completion of the partition process, formatting the hard drive and copying files, the computer will restart again.

3. Now, choose the GUI Mode Setup option.

4. Wait for a while and your installation will be successfully completed.

There is another method by which you can do the same by creating a multiboot USB drive. Though this is pretty time-consuming technique, I’d still prefer this. Which technique do your prefer? Let us know through your comments.

@Thaslim: Yes! Your prediction is write. The application that we are using to make your USB bootable is not compatible with Windows 7. We are sorry that we did not focused this point. We shall make some workarounds on this issue. In the mean time you can arrange a xp installed pc and make your USB bootable for installing Windows XP from it. This method works fine. Thanks for sharing.

Are you serious? I just did this 3 times because of error. Please stick that in GIANT print at the heading so we don’t waste our time. I have to build a machine to make a damn bootable USB to install on a machine.

Hi, I have looked around for this solution for last two days, I found the details in here very elaborative. I had this TOSHIBA bought with Windows Vista Premium installed but obviously not being happy with it chose to install XP on it. Initially I had to struggle a lot to find a way around it as SATA HDD would not get detected by Original XP CD, so used liteon to create a CD to include SATA drivers init and was successful. The laptop now was much faster than earlier. The other day I had sound problem and reinstalled the sound driver and rebooted the laptop but it would not reboot with “UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME”. Have tried so many work arounds but nothing seems to work, Can not go in recovery console to repair it by using CHKDSK, MBRFIX. Can you please tell me a way out as I have lots of Data on this three partitioned HDD. I have tried booting from Flash Drive but it does not seem to work. Is there a way to have windows XP run from flash drive itself so that I can access the HDD and use CHKDSK and fix the MBR. Any help would be highly appreciated.

Hi,
Tanmay,
As you described in “Install Windows XP From USB Flash Drive Part-II” petousb is fine worked upto pendrive format….as I type in cmd prompt cd c:softslasbootsect enter it shows
The system cannot find the path specified again further
>bootsect /nt52 I: enter it shows
‘bootsect’ is not recognized as an internal or external command,……This not worked for me. Or am I following any wrong procedure. And I want to know that is it happening cuz I’m using currently windows vista as OS. or this method is appropriate for windows XP only. please help.Thanx in advance

@Pankh: Sorry for that you are still in problem. You might not read the comment section fully. One of the reder had the same problem. This procedure does not support the Vista or Windows 7 system. You need a xp installed Computer to get ready your pen drive bootable for XP. We have tested several time this process in Windows XP and it works fine. Try in a XP machine.

A’ight Tanmay Thanx I appreciate. Is there anyway That I could resolve this issue on VISTA cuz my CD/DVD Rom Not working. So I’m in need of XP cuz vista Ruin my PC. Anyways THANKS tanmay you doing great JOB. Inform me if there’s any update on VISTA format using Flash. Thanks a lot.

@Pankhs: I can understand your situation. But friend you need the CD/DVD Rom atleast one time to make your Pen drive capable to install Windows XP. So my suggestion is that if you have not the CD/DVD Rom then arrange a XP installed machine with CD/DVD ROM from your friends. Also I will find some stuffs so that the vista users can create the XP installation Pen drive.

I failed to mention: the above failure is in TXT mode, which goes directly to the first blue XP install screen (3rd party RAID driver), then the second (Automated System Recovery), then fails as above. There is nothing like a DOS prompt or any opportunity to format the HDD.
If I choose the GUI it fails with:
“file is missing or corrupt:
system32hal.dll”

Murfin: After reading you comments, I can guess some reasons of the failure.
1. The XP source file may be corrupted.
2. The USB drive might have some problem.
3. If you are using any other computer to prepare the USB, the CD/DVD drive to copy the xp file, may be the CD/DVD drive is not able read properly.
Check all of the above points. The procedure is pretty good and me and my friends apply this method very often to install XP from the USB drive.
let me know if those can solve your problem.

Hi Tammy
I tried to install xp on my HCl Laptop.
All the step are very cleared and no problem occured during there steps.
But it take long time to copy XP on USB drive.
I am using 1 GB pendrive.
It take 1 minute for 1 mb. pls reduce the time. However all the work is fine. Hepl me!

@Sarang: Are you applying this method as an admin user of the Os that you are using? If no then that may be an issue. If yes, then check your USB drive is working properly. Some time the USB drives become write protect due to virus. Is the host computer virus free?

So this is the reason that you were getting error when making the USB drive ready to boot XP. This method does not work on Windows 7. You might not notice Update: You should have XP installed computer for this process.

Sir, may be you could me… when i install xp sp3.. on the installation process.. when formating the c: drive, where i’m goin’ to install the OS. it says that the drive maybe be corrupt and cannot be formatted. But actually it’s working.

hi there , ive done what you say to get the usb stick ready to install xp on a compaq mini cq10 but when choosing the txt mode first i get a blue screen just after it starts copying windows files to the netbook .
in the blue screen it says basically that the computer was shut down to prevent damage .
tech info – stop 0x0000007b (0xf7a22524,0xc0000034,0x00000000,0x00000000

Hi tanmay , Ok i got passed my last problem but now i have another , Just after formating it goes onto the examine disc routine then just as it starts it fails saying ,, The following value in the .sif file used by setup is corrupted or missing :

Value 0 on the line in section [sourcedisksfiles] with key “binifix4.cmd.”

Setup cannot continue. to quit setup, press f3.

That is as far as in getting , does that mean that the file is missing from the usb stick ?

This problem is happening at the time of usb stick processing procedure.Either the source file is corrupted or having problem when copying the files from the CD drive (if you are copying directly from there ). My suggestion is to try to arrange a fresh copy of XP and also use a good CD/DVD drive.

Okay thnx. I have one more question. I have downloaded XP Professional Service Pack 3 from internet. But it is an Image file that is, the format of the file is .iso I know that we have to mount or burn to use this types of Files. When i double click on it, it opens Nero and prompts me to burn a CD. But i just wanna ask whether it will make the CD bootable or not?? Should i burn the disc directly by double clicking on the image file or should i mount the image file first and then Make a bootable CD from the Nero menu ???
Plz suggest me the correct method.

Thanx again.
But the problem is that i have a laptop with Windows 7 installed and i have read in the above comments that this method doesn’t work with window 7. So what do you suggest should i use WinToFlash now ??
And i one more question, after making the pendrive bootable with WinToFlash. Will the rest of the process of installing Windows Xp will remain same or will it change ????

It seems that the CD from where you are creating the USb, is not working properly. This may happen for several reason. One of the reason is the virus. If your computer has any virus then they also use those files. So try in a virus free computer. otherwise you have to replace the installation CD and arrange a different one.

hey friend i have installed with this method but i got a message of corrupt os after ntfs or no change option…..
what am i do now…?
i use all oprating(newely installed) and more pen drive of 4 gB..
tell me plz imiddiatly

i am trying to reinstall windows Xp on my mini compaq cq10-120ca, i have followed your tutorial but now this is what is happenning when i try to boot it up and install xp with the usb device:

it say:

a problem as been detected and windows has been shut to prevent damage to your computer.

if this is the first time you’ve seen this stop error screen, restart your computer. if this screen appears again, follow these steps:

check for viruses on your computer. remove any newly installed hard drives or hard dives contollers. check your hard drive to make sure it is propely configured and terminated. run CHKDSK /F to check for hard drive corruption, and then restart your computer.

technical information:

*** stop: 0x0000007B (0xf7a22524, 0x00000034, 0x00000000, 0x00000000)

i don’t know what to do, i have restarted it and it shows the same error message, and i don’t know how to check the CHKDSK thing!

hiii…completed 1st part and when try to run “petousb” part 2nd…2 times yes yes and then got error while formating after 50%….”Format Ex Error{11}:an error occurred formating the drive”.
i am using new pen drive and it is 8GB drive…whts wrong with it ?

i have tried the above method but i had win 7 as os.after reading the posts i can understand that it does not work.ok im using win 7 in laptop asus eee pc r101 i want to install xp if i follow the above instructions on an xp os the can it be useful.then can in install xp on win 7 plz suggest

@Meraz: Following the steps above on a XP installed PC you can make any USB drive bootable with Windows XP i.e you can install now XP from that USB drive in any computer that supports USB booting (almost all modern computer do that.

Now if you try ti install windows XP from that USB or any other media like Bootable CD on computer that is already installed with Windows 7 or any version later of XP, you need to first format the installed drive as you can not install over a latest version of Windows. But the opposite is true. That is you can install Windows 7 after installing Windows XP.

Have been doing so with no success. With or without the flash drive in, the sytem loops back to the opening bios option screen 4 times: Without the flash drive, then get “No Operating System Found.” With flash drive in (after the 4 loops), it goes to the screen where I choose either TXT or GUI, with GUI being the default. When I go to device manager, the flash drive shows up under the cd/dvd player. Mightmy disk ID’s been changed? Just cannot figure this out. Thanks for any input here. Ron

hi tanmay thanks i tried the above steps in xp os and i was succesful but the only thing went wrong was my laptop is from saudi arabia thus it gave an option to restore my previous version of xp in arabic so i accepted it n the xp with arabic language is installed as i dnt knw arabic.now i tried to change display language from regional language but only the writing language changed to english not the display language now if u dnt mind can u tell a diff way to change display language without formatting .again thanks a lot…
P.S.for new users read the above aricle carefully n do it step by step as mentioned above then no problem will arise cause i have done the same

Puja: First make sure that the source Disk of Windows XP is not corrupted and your CD drive is reading the data from it properly (in the computer where you preparing your USB disk). Also make sure that you have followed every step properly without any error.

You can find in this comment section, many of the users have successfully made their USB drive bootable to install Windows XP, where some people did not. So it is impossible to say exactly what is happening with you. But the method is 100 percent perfect and I still use this for installing XP in my own laptop.

Hi Tanmay,
I followed your directions to the letter successfully only substituting drive letters where necessary to continue, I entered the bios and set my lexmark 4g usb stick to 1st boot source. When the computer reboots it tries to boot from usb stick but all I see is the letter j followed by a flashing cursor in the top left hand corner. Incidentally the drive letter of this stick is also J: Furthermore I also tried Part 1 of this article first before trying this part with exactly the same result just a j followed by a flashing cursor in the top left hand corner. Please help me, I have an Advent 7060 laptop that will not start just keep booting over and over normal and safe, the CD/DVD Drive has failed so I can not boot from CD, I even took the drive out and loaded I386 to the drive in another computer but cannot access it because I can not get to the command prompt, I know if I could access the recovery console I could repair the boot sector etc. Thanks – Jon.

Hi Tanmay, Thanks for your reply but my USB drive is brand new never used until now and before I started this process I removed the drive from my laptop and installed it into my desktop and virus scanned the drive completely cleaning it before placing back in the laptop to try this process, so it can not be either, why do I have the letter J followed by a flashing cursor and nothing else. Thanks – Jon.

Hi Tanmay, Absolutely not, I am very careful and thorough with this desktop, it is my Server for all the other computers in my network and consequently it is scanned daily by several different programs including AVG 2011, Spyware Doctor, Registry Mechanic, etc to make sure this unit remains clean. I need this USB Boot to work as this is the only way I can fix my laptop, please read my entries further up to see what my problems are. I appreciate your help. Thanks – Jon.

Thank you for the write up. I followed all the instructions but when i try to load from the USB i get this error message: File $WIN_NT$.~BTbiosinfo.inf could not be loaded. The error code is 14. Setup cannot continue. Press any key to exit. Can you help with this error. Thanks for all your help.

Thank you Tanmay, I have installed Win XP in my samsung netbook successfully using pendrive. Now I’m getting a message to activate Windows, Actually I don’t want to activate, Is there any option to skip without activating? I think if we delete some files, we wont get that message, Could you please let me know the files to delete so that I can continue to use win XP without activation. Now I’m getting the message that “25 days left to activate”.

everybody, guys,
listen up i found a way to address the problem that after successful install of WinXP you still have to boot your netbook with the usb stick in!(it seems like a netbook problem). after successful installation and boot finish, return usb stick to normal computer with CDDVD and start the XP_FROM_USB procedure again…. but when you get to “Would you like USB-stick to be preferred Boot Drive U……………….”

Click “NO”.
Then Continue as normal to the end.

Load WinXP again like you did before but at first setup screen where it says “Please select the operating system to start”, select 1. Txt Mode setup Windows XP…

It will start again but when it stops at the first blue screen asking you to press Enter to install Win XP, dont do that, select RecoveryRepair by pressing R on your keyboard. Then it will run and repair your master boot record. wait for all Win XP to install again. Then click on ‘Safely Remove Hardware’, let it stop the usb stick then remove it. Switch off your computer, wait 5 minutes, switch on again and it will boot without asking for the USB.

jack….
you have to start all over again. this method is good but difficult, you just keep trying until it works. there are slight diferences in BIOS and hardware installed that is why people are getting differing results.

if you previously had win7/vista then you must delete everything or else when you install winXP the old windows will move itself to the small partition it made, allow you to continue, then take over when you are about to start. winXP cannot control vista or win7.

jack…..
actually you must have done a lot wrong because U: is your USB not your harddisk!! your harddisk is C: therefore I think you partitioned the flashdrive. to partion the computer, you have to start again, and follow the instructions of Part II above exactly, sorry.

actually i just followed everything as mentioned in the step by step. What i’ve realized is, is it because my HDD is SATA and win xp has no driver to load the necessary SATA driver for the HDD during the setup process. And previous OS which i was using is XP.

Have yet to try the pendrive out, but for those of you who don’t have a CD/DVD rom I just wanted to suggest DAEMON lite tools, allows you to mount the ISO from a copy (or download) of your XP and use it as such. I used this method since my XP cd was so badly scratched.

when i restart my pc , the following error occurs:-
“NTDLR is missing Press any key to restart ”
and after pressing the key windows starts normally and no screen like choosing an operating system appears
what’s the matter ?

I follow the step but when I choose text-mode, the eee-lap-top pop up a message that there is no “drive”, although there are option to choose create partition, but it doesn’t work.and if i choose GUI mode, it pops up “Please re-install hal.dll at rootsystem32. and i have tried several methods, but comes out same result. I have install ubantu successfully to the eee-lap-top. is there any one can advice me how to partition the eee-laptop to install xp? thanks.

I have a ee-laptop. I don’t have a xp cd but a copy of that. I tried to install a ME before install xp, but the ME cd can’t recognize dvd drive, so there is no drive. and I can’t install a ME even. However, I managed to partition only 1G out of 250G. and format it to FAT. I stuck there. then I try to install xp through USB drive. But when I try to boot up the eee-laptop, it opops up either no drive in text mode or “re-instal lhal.dll”. I was stuck. Please advice me how? thanks.

Sorry Danial, I overlooked your previous comment. If you are getting such message that there is no drive in your computer, then you should disable the SATA native mode from the BIOS setup. then try reinstalling from the usb drive and of-course start TXT mode first.

hi guys, thanks for the response. I have checked the BIOS but there is not a option for sata setting. I have tried to use MULTIBOOT and other software to install xp, but get the same result, it ask either NO DRIVE in text mode or RE-INSTALL DAL.DLL in seconde part of installation. I read quite some from the forum, and try to follow, but still stuck. Please help me. Thanks again.

Dear Tanmay, I have tried your method step by step, and I got that USB drive. but still stuck at the the process. when I choose to install in text mode, the machine load some files to the eee-laptop, and it shows WINDOWS IS STARTING UP, but then hang, and most of the time pops up message of no drive, or PRESS [S] FOR SPECIFY A DRIVE, OR PRESS ENTER FOR NOT SURE. Can you help me? thank you..

Danial: It is not the problem of the USB drive from where you are installing Windows XP. After reading the comments from you, I can guess that the problem is with your hardware. The new laptops are enabled with Sata drive, But XP does not have the hard disk driver in itself. That is why you can install UBUNTU as it comes with all the necessary drivers in its installation file. If you try to install Windows 7, you can do that without performing any BIOS setup. But to install Windows XP, you must have to disable native sata mode from the BIOS. You should find this in BIOS under Disk management or something like that. I can not tell you the exact path of disabling SATA native mode in your BIOS as it differs computer to computer. Try again to find out that. Also try to find that in your manufacturer website.

I have followed the method which you described clearly and I became able to make a bootable pen drive ( 4gb). After that I tried to setup windows xp in samsung netbook and c: drive was deleted but can not be copied windows. It says,” set up can not find …. file. If I retry, then again it says,” set up can not find ….. Plesse give me a easy solution to solve the problem

I followed all the steps mentioned above, and i am able to get a screen where in i deleted some old paritions and selected a partion to install the XP. So it formated the partition and afterwards ,got an message saying ‘couldn’t locate the windows XP Source can’t access CDROM’ Press enter to retry OR F3 to quit ‘

So why it’s not recognizing the USB Drive as source after formating the partition ?

Hi. I have followed all your instructions. The one i did not unerstand is the commands: cd c:\softslas\bootsect then press enter. then type bootsect /nt52 I: and press enter. Am I to replace the letter “I” with my USB drive letter. Coz when i type “I” it gives me an error, that there is no drive “I” . Nicholas